I have never read anything penned by John “What Prince Charles Would Look Like If He Wasn’t Inbred” Steinbeck. Since his greatest works have (on the off chance I entertain a gentleman caller from the CompLit department) been gathering dust on my bookshelf for years, reimagining them as social media platforms might be the most action they get.
1. East of Eden – LinkedIn
According to a NYTimes book review, East of Eden is a quarter of a million words long and “clumsy in structure”. “Defaced by excessive melodramatics”? “Cheap sensationalism”? Remind you of anything? Perhaps scrolling through droves of classmates best-known for being glued to a keg pronouncing themselves ‘summer analysts’? Your high school principal sharing an obviously fabricated feel-good news story captioned ‘#thinkdifferently’? LinkedIn is all just a bit too much… much like Steinbeck’s longest novel and best paperweight.
2. Of Mice and Men – Twitter
This novelette is giving me ‘280 characters or less’. Another book review from 1936 holds the audience of this “little story,” to be anyone who subscribes to “sure, raucous, vulgar Americanism”. Now, if that quotation doesn’t give the exact same energy as Twitter’s unique ability to bring discussion of Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles to the White House… I don’t know what does.
3. Tortilla Flat – TikTok
Apparently, in this book, Steinbeck spins a tale of “sun-loving, heavy wine-drinking, anti-social loafers and hoodlums who work only when necessity demands”. Sounds like your average TikTok scroller, overlooking their reading for social media’s greatest time-sink. Did I only read the first 26 pages of Dracula for my seminar this week? Perhaps… but do I now know of every ‘Berries and Cream’ remix in existence? Absolutely.
4. The Grapes of Wrath – Facebook
New Republic labelled The Grapes of Wrath as “Steinbeck’s longest and angriest and most impressive work” in 1939. Explosive rambling about unjust or oppressive situations? Sounds eerily like my Catholic family’s Prager U re-posts. Yeah, Steinbeck’s best-known work has Aunt Cheri’s “tHis iS wHAt A fOeTus LooKs LiKe aT tWo WeEKs” propaganda written all over it. We all know damn well that’s a picture of fish roe, Cheri. I’ve passed blood clots bigger than that.
Wait a minute.
5. Cannery Row – Instagram
Deceptively simple and, apparently, “disarming,” there’s no better reimagining of Cannery Row than the internet’s one-stop-shop for all your body image issues. Instagram! If the Cincinnati Inquirer thinks Steinbeck’s 1945 novel is “complex without being complicated”, they should try navigating Reels.
If you’ve read any of these great American novels and disagree with my takes, I do not care and also can you swipe me into a dining hall at some point? I know it’s grab-and-go right now, but I really miss the Jo’s fries and paying with a debit card ages me.
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